He arches an eyebrow, glancing sideways at my screen before starting to drive again. “That looked like Slack?”
“Yeah, we have a family Slack!” I slip my phone into my purse. “Such big families we have.”
“Mm,” he says, brow creasing. “When do I get to meet them? Your aunt knows I’m real now, but—” He gives me a pointed glance. “How do I know she is?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I say, desperately trying to regain that flirty tone that used to come easily with him. “Have you earned it yet?”
Mark Winterson frowns, his eyes on the road. “How exactly would I earn it?” he demands. Then softer, he adds: “I’d like to,” and my heart aches.
I notice we’re entering Beverly Hills, and it dawns on methat I don’t have the most basic information about what I’m getting myself into.
“Wait, so whose wedding is it?”
Mark Winterson adjusts his grip on the wheel. “My cousin Zack’s.”
“Ooh, the famous Zack!” I say, remembering his story from the yacht.
“You, um—you might have seen him around. He works at TKCORP, too.”
“What does he do there?”
He hesitates like he’s been dreading telling me about this for some reason. “He’s the Senior VP of Finance.”
Oh God. That would make him Greg’s boss’s boss’s boss’sboss.
“Senior VP of finance?”
“Yeah—senior, already! He’s, like, twenty-nine. Barely just learned to shave.” He laughs unhappily. “Can you believe it?”
I know from glancing at Mark Winterson’s driver’s license that he’s thirty-one. I wonder how much of his waking life he spends ruminating on the fact that he’s anassociatevice president.
“So are you guys…still close?”
He runs a nervous hand through his hair. “He’s a character. You’ll see.”
We’re making our way up Rodeo Drive, and I can’t help staring at all the shiny, glittering storefronts, like jewelry boxes all up and down this palm-tree-lined street.
The car turns in to a parking garage, and we head underground. After he parks, Mark Winterson doesn’t move right away, and we sit there in silence.
He reaches out to caress my cheek, and I bite back my fight-or-flight reflex. “You always seem closed off.” His fingers come to a rest under my chin, tilting my head to meet his gaze. “Do you not trust me?”
“No, of course I do.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “What are you hiding in there?”
“What makes you think I’m hiding anything?” The sweat is gathering behind my knees, and I try putting on a goofy voice. “What you see is what you get, baby.”
Mark Winterson traps my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Mm yeah, I don’t think that’s true. I think you don’t trust me.” He traces my bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, and I feel panicked and slightly turned on (mind and body really at odds here!).
You’re just extending a relationship longer than you should and gossiping to your friends about him! Not such a huge departure from the past!
“But that’s okay.” His hand drops back into his lap. “I get the sense you’ve been through some shit. I do hope I can earn that one day, though.”
The earnest look on his face is like a knife in my gut.Am I going to be able to pull this off? Should I end this now?
“Okay,” he says, opening the driver’s-side door. “Time to shop.”
Chapter
